


Balance in All Things

by RaeC



Category: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-08-29
Updated: 1999-08-29
Packaged: 2017-11-10 12:14:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/466147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaeC/pseuds/RaeC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First person narrative from Qui-Gon's Mother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Balance in All Things

Balance...laughter invades as I hear this concept spouted once more. Balance in all things. They truly have no idea of what they preach, of what they seek, these stale, pallid Jedi wandering the halls of Corusant. I know, how bitterly I know, the feel of Balance.

I know the glowing bonds of love. I know the desecrating heat of hate. I felt once, the sea of serenity, and the growing seeds of rage. I know both light and dark, intimately. The dirty, oily feel of the Dark Side and the joy in which feeds the Light. How easily it is to be seduced by that which I denied. Oh yes, I know Balance....Balance in all things...

That which is denied grows stronger. So now, I no longer deny. It was really simple after all. How I tremble at the feel of biting, acidic tears as they tumble down my face. Home, I am finally home, yet it is an empty place. Filled with meaningless prattle from beings too young to understand what they say. Do you know what you give up in this blind dedication to a dying ideal, my young ones? Pure, cold rage releases itself into the empty space. Can't you feel how un-balanced this all is? Can you understand that which you do not know?

No, how can they? The rage at the unfairness of it all falls back into hollow laughter of the insane. To see it at all, they would have to fall back into the nothingness in which I exist, all alone. Here where there is no one to hear, no one to feel my presence any more. No one who can offer a calming balance to my own tortured soul. Caste adrift, caught in a web of my own creation, because I attempted to offer comfort as my own body lay dying.

Balance, Master Yoda? Where is my Balance? Where is my reward for following your dictates? Where is my comfort for the years of endless pain? To caught up in your web of Duty, the Code, and the ceremony of Being Jedi! Pah, I spit on this. But then again you know me too well, Master. For once upon a time we balanced each other, did we not? A yin, and yang. One Master, one Padawan. One teacher, one student. That is a balance itself, is it not? Just as I see another Master with his student, but they are more, so very much more.

They are a pair, are they not? One force, one unit, one being split in half, a perfect.....pair. Balanced. Is that not what makes balance? Is it not any wonder they hunger for each other? The half always seeks the whole. And I see the Master finally relinquishing the eternal control which he holds like a protective blanket over himself, falling, tumbling to the floor, pooling at his feet as the riot of emotion so long denied finally comes to the fore. Who will survive the coupling? The man, or the beast?

Yet another failure in Balance, my Master. Too much control is not a good thing. That which is denied grows stronger. Yet, here in these hallowed walls, I see it encouraged time and time again. To know passion is to know life! Control knows when to release them. And he is afraid, my Qui-Gon. I can see him leaning against the door, his head and palm resting against the cool surface, trying to find the blanket so recently caste aside. So afraid to feel anything other than what one should for his student. Ah, but there's the catch, isn't it my love? Student, no longer. Pushed aside in pride, in anger, and in defense of one still young. Forgot you did, this one, in the heat of the moment.

Wanting to enter, wanting to be forgiven, wanting to make amends to the other inside, the one who knows you better than himself, the one you betrayed. Ah, my Qui-Gon, what a tangled web you have spun for yourself.

And the other? Oh, he stands with his back turned from the door. All control, and no feeling. What a splendid pair you make! He knows you are there, needing to let you in, needing to forgive, to release the pain inside to the one whom knows him. But, he cannot. He has found my Qui-Gon's pride and his control. You have taught Obi-Wan well, my son.

And I? I can do nothing! Nothing but watch as the balance shifts from one to the other. One's pride, one's insecurities, one's love, one's hate, passes back and forth because they never became whole. Never took that final step, and released all the precious little controls which they held over themselves to the void. It is a simple nothingness which yearns to be filled.

Balance. How I hate what the concept has become. Turned, twisted, and molded into an ideal in which no one remembers how to accomplish it anymore. That one should live in balance with all things, both light and dark, controlled and not controlled, believe and not believe, be and not be. Balance in all things.

I feel the Balance now, Master, thank you for showing me. I both love and hate, breathe and not, live and die at the same moment. Every second, every moment is a symphony, and I can't touch it. I can't hear it, but I know it's there.

There is no death, only the Force. Well there is a balance to that as well. There is no Force, there is only the nothingness. It is a pity the young ones must learn this lesson for themselves.

Bitter, yes, you could say I am. Mad? Oh with a certainty. But it is not for myself. I've lived too long in the world on nothing more than hope, struggling each day for the next. I was caste aside, given gladly to the Dark Side on silver platter because of my views. Happily did it accept my rage, my despair. But the pain only held its fascination for so long, before hope once again found a place in my breast, and I left. Marked 'Rogue' for a taint that I refused to relinquish. It is not failure to know the Dark Side's touch. Just failure to want to know. This they cannot heal in me. Ah well. So now I serve no one. Serve no greater purpose save one, my son. Who stands at this door, afraid, and alone. Un-balanced.

I would have him know true balance, to know what it means to be whole, as I once did long ago. To know, because I know now trapped in the nothingness, that his time is short. Because for him, tomorrow will not come. He lives in the now, the present; the future ever changing to be denied. For once I wish I could pass on a knowledge learned, that which is denied grows stronger. Pity. And his other half who lives in both past and future, a perfect balance to himself. Too much in both, does Obi-Wan live. One must live in all times at once. Balance in all things.

Together, they might over come what I have seen, but I know better. Too long denied, has the future been, and it will collect its reward. But I would have them know each other, before he becomes one with the Force. How to reach beyond the nothingness I have become?

"There is no try, only do." Yet another of Master Yoda's teachings. Do? I have, again and again I have reached out, attempting to touch, to speak, to form. Anything to reach these two proud, hurting creatures, torn between themselves and their duty. Watching them drift further apart, sending their feelings into the Force, hiding themselves from each other and hiding themselves as well, tangled in the nothingness of which I am.

Wait! A barely held thought begins to form. I am nothing. They are nothing. From nothing comes something. A blank slate with which to create and to form. Ever so carefully, I pull the waiting nothingness to myself. As I do, the door which blocked the way, opens. Neither one makes a move. Oh well, Obi-Wan has at least turned around, and Qui-Gon has dropped his hand. But both are still so far from each other. No closer to forgiving each other, or reaching resolution.

Arghh! What in the Force does it take? Are the gaps so wide that they can never be breached? I wanted to scream. I want to throw things, smash and break them asunder. In the name of all that is Holy, how do I reach them? A rumble of sound reaches across the nothingness in which I float.

"There is no do, only try."

Laughter yet again, at the oddity of Balance. Now is not the time for focus, but for experiments. I understand in my madness, now. I am their only bridge. A tenuous link in their bond that has never been broken or shielded, because they do not know it exists. How very apropos. The whirl of emotion: anger...love...betrayal...grief...shame, swirl around me, jumping over each other, running through each other, trying to be the victor in a fight that none can win. Again the thought of Balance tumbles along the nothingness.

Balance, why again Balance? They already balance each other. Can't they see that? Don't they know? No...they don't....because I stand in the middle. Laughter again. I've pulled their nothingness to myself, creating a bridge they don't know how to cross. Great, just wonderful. How much more can I mess things up? Oh, for gods' sake, Qui-Gon come in and shut the door! And so he does, meekly yet with purpose.

Okay, now we're getting somewhere. Oh no! Protective stance, Obi-Wan is pulling further into himself. I recognize this one. Just like when he was a child, backing off, hugging himself, and pulling deep inside, so that all emotion rolls off of him as water over a stone. The pain to be examined later, to find the fault within himself. Hesitation, fear, desire, want, and need are flaming around me, from both directions at once. How to bring them together? Damn it! This would be so much easier if I could just reach out and push them together. If I could just use the Force!

My control in the nothingness is slipping. I feel bits and pieces slowly taking away thought. Ah well, balance in all things, my son. The nothingness seeks to guide me away. One last thing, one final call to a link slowly unraveling from the roots of a Mother's love embedded long ago. An echo of the past, to add support, to sooth past hurts, and to protect young charges in the darkest of nights from the demons under the bed.....

A voice that both men know from repeated contact over the years, even if one will only recognize the sound from a long ago youth. Yes, I have watched, and guided both for so long, never realizing why the other had attached himself to me. They were one. Always one. In perfect harmony. One heart, one mind, one soul, one. Balanced. And I whisper to the swirling chaos, bringing the halves to the whole as I disappear into the vast nothingness to await my own call......

"I am......here."

Balance in all things, Master Yoda. Guard them well.


End file.
